How Meijer Is Handling the Accelerating Pace of Change in Retail

CHICAGO — To keep up with the accelerating pace of change in retail, Midwestern mass merchant Meijer Inc. is focused on three things: customers, convenience and content.

“As retailers and manufacturers, it’s important for us to figure out where consumer mindsets are going," Meijer’s Vice President of Digital Shopping & Ecommerce Art Sebastian explained during a presentation at the recent Path to Purchase Summit.  

The retailer seeks to appeal to its diverse customer base through personalization. To help execute this, Meijer groups its shoppers into four different mindsets, each with their own needs:

• Master Planner: well organized and looks ahead to occasions months in advance.
• Bold Adventurer: enjoys wandering stores finding inspiration.
• Constant Juggler: time crunched and constantly on the go.
• Simplicity Seeker: wants to get in and out of the store as quickly as possible.

Meijer plans to use technology to provide personalized experiences for these unique shoppers. For instance, Sebastian cited a new function in development for the retailer's mobile application that would alert employees when a shopper is heading to a store so that a constant juggler could be greeted with coffee. The same function could also help the simplicity seeker by having someone bring him his prescription while he walks the aisles so he doesn't have to wait at the pharmacy.

The mass merchant is already delivering personalized experiences through its mPerks Rewards program, which arranges deals based on shopping behavior so that the most relevant offers are at the top. It also recommends items based on purchase frequency, predicting when a shopper might be close to running out, and tailors product search results to past preferences.

The goal is to deliver a seamless in-store and digital experience that will make shoppers feel like Meijer knows them, according to Sebastian.

Held March 12-14 in Chicago, the Path to Purchase Summit (P2PSummit) is the only conference entirely focused on specific content and applicable strategies for navigating today's transformational retail experience. The event is produced by EnsembleIQ, parent company of Convenience Store News.

Click here for more from the Meijer presentation and additional coverage of the P2PSummit by CSNews sister publication Shopper Marketing.